A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to messaging systems and, more particularly, to systems and methods that provide enhanced services for e-mail messages.
B. Description of Related Art
Electronic mail (“e-mail”) is quickly becoming a standard mode of communication. E-mail'popularity can be attributed to the ease with which e-mail messages may be transmitted and the speed with which a transmitted message arrives at its intended destination. For example, to transmit a single e-mail message, the sender typically inputs a message and addresses the message with the recipient's e-mail address. When the message is complete, the sender commands the e-mail software to transmit the message, and the message is then delivered over a network, such as the Internet. The delivered message is quickly received by the recipient via a computer or the like.
FIG. 1 is a diagram of a conventional e-mail system 100. The e-mail system 100 includes a message arrival component 110, user mailboxes 120, message retrieval component 130, and e-mail clients 140. The message arrival component 110 connects to a network, such as the Internet, to receive e-mail messages from one or more e-mail senders, using, for example, computer devices. The message arrival component 110 includes a server 112 and a local delivery agent 114. The server 112 uses a standard transfer protocol, such as the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), to process the e-mail messages and place them in the appropriate user mailboxes 120, typically using the services of a local delivery agent 114. The local delivery agent 114 includes the appropriate software and/or hardware to perform the message delivery.
The user mailboxes 120 include storage locations of one or more memory devices assigned to particular e-mail recipients. The user mailboxes 120 typically store e-mail messages for retrieval by the recipients. The message retrieval component 130 includes a server 132 that uses a conventional message access protocol, such as Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) or Internet Message Access Protocol 4 (IMAP4), to retrieve the e-mail messages from the user mailboxes 120. The e-mail clients 140 receive instructions from the e-mail recipients and, via the server 132, provide content and state information regarding the messages in the user mailboxes 120 to the e-mail recipients.
Processing by the e-mail system 100 typically commences with an e-mail sender using a computer device to construct and transmit an e-mail message. The e-mail message from the sender is encoded as an RFC822/MIME stream and routed through the network, based on its destination address, to a specific domain using a standard message transfer protocol, such as SMTP. Within that domain, the message stream is routed to the specific SMTP server, such as server 112, responsible for placing the message in the destination mailbox 120. The server 112 sends the message to the local delivery agent 114 for storage in the destination mailbox 120. The local delivery agent 114 delivers the message to the destination mailbox 120 and notifies the server 112 of the delivery status.
When an e-mail recipient desires to retrieve messages from the destination mailbox 120, the recipient uses a computer device to invoke an e-mail client 140 that instructs the server 132 to access the destination mailbox 120. The server 132 uses a standard message access protocol, such as POP3 or IMAP4, to open the destination mailbox 120 and return the content/state information about the message to the e-mail recipient.
Conventional e-mail service providers offer enhanced messaging services that are of value to the user to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Some examples of enhanced messaging features include extracting/blocking unwanted messages or removing unwanted parts of messages; inserting a targeted advertisement (to support low-cost/no-cost mail service); replacing a media file attachment with streaming controls (to reduce download time); notifying the user of the new message (e.g., sending a pager notification, displaying a dialog box, etc.); and redirecting the message to other preferred mail account(s).
Some conventional e-mail providers offer these services by providing an enhanced e-mail client. The enhanced e-mail client, however, is rigid in the sense that it restricts the available services to only those services that the e-mail client was originally designed to provide. Other conventional e-mail providers embed additional functionality into the e-mail message itself, independent of the e-mail client. This approach, however, increases network requirements and costs, both to the provider and the user.
As a result, a need exists for a flexible mechanism to offer enhanced e-mail services without substantially increasing requirements and costs to the provider or the user.